Woody Guthrie and Songs of My Oklahoma Home

It may take a Sooner, with the gritty taste of the dust bowl still on his tongue, to hear the country twang (and Jimmie Rodgers influence) in the songs of America’s first urban cowboy. Talley, an Okie who went to Nashville to craft some of the best albums of the ’70s, doesn’t gussy up Guthrie but lets his stark imagery and humble melodies speak their own quiet power. A gem. B+